This article was first published by RNZ.
The Privacy Commissioner has no record of knowing that the Ministry of Social Development was using fake social media profiles to spy on beneficiaries for fraud.
RNZ recently revealed that ministry staff set up the fakes to gather information through Facebook and other platforms.
It paused the practice in 2021 and is now instituting a first-ever policy that bans it.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner investigated and castigated the ministry in 2019 for collecting information about people from third parties.
But the office said that while the investigation touched on the use of Facebook in one case study, “this did not raise the issue of fake social media personas”.
It told RNZ, in response to an Official Information Act request, that it had no record of the ministry telling it about the use of the fakes.
The ministry, in its online privacy policy, told clients what information it gathered, but said this did not include any reference to fake personas in use prior to mid-2021.
- RNZ